Why do some app icons start to not work?

[absinthe1021]

I'm having an odd problem. The desktop icon for certain apps won't launch the application. Instead, I get a message that the "app is not installed" (though obviously it is). I go to the app list and try to launch from there and get the same thing.

The only thing these apps have in common is that they're Amazon apps. I can open the Amazon app store and open the list of "My Apps," and the little button next to these particular apps will say "Open" instead of Download or Install. If I press Open from there, the app launches immediately, no problem.

Not all of my Amazon-downloaded apps are effected, but all the apps effected do seem to be from Amazon (I think).

I'm on a new Motorola Atrix, btw.

I had thought that maybe after updating an app, the home screen icon was pointing to an old and perhaps deleted file. So I erased and replaced the icon, but that didn't work. So, in a nutshell, I seem to have several apps that I can only run by opening the Amazon app store and pressing Open.

Ideas?

 

[jerofld]

Because the app is on your SD card and you either rebooted (and the shortcut to the app gets broken) or you're in disk mode and the SD card is unmounted in Android (so it can be used by the PC). Go into Settings > Applications > Manage Applications > SD tab and move all the apps you want to use regularly over to your phone.

I also recommend that you re-create the shortcuts on your homescreen. I'm not sure it's necessary, but it probably isn't a bad idea.

 

[absinthe1021]

I will follow this advice and see if it changes anything. However, the weird thing is that there is no SD card in my phone.

 

[lunatic59]

I will follow this advice and see if it changes anything. However, the weird thing is that there is no SD card in my phone.

There is no external card, but the Atrix has it's memory divided into two partitions with the first 2 GB reserved for the system and the remainder mounted as /sdcard/ which, to the Android system, is an sd card. While you can't physically remove it, you can unmount it from Android to mount in storage mode. If you try to launch any apps stored there ... or that stores its data and preferences there, it will give you an error similar to what you are seeing.